


can’t i just say i like you?

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band), Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Secret Relationship, Sweet, basically just chenlix being adorable secret bfs, they’re in highschool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22670608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “we wanted to meet your partner!”chenle choked. “his what?”.  jisung held back a smirk. “you’re partners... for the history project?”
Relationships: Lee Felix (Stray Kids)/Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 4
Kudos: 93





	can’t i just say i like you?

to say felix panicked upon finding jisung and hyunjin sitting beside his boyfriend at the lunch table would be an understatement. felix changed route, how hungry he was suddenly not important as his main priority was to save chenle from his friend’s before they managed to get any information out of him.

“hey felix!” jisung smiled, the smile widening upon seeing how annoyed felix looked. chenle gave felix a little smile, averting his attention back to his lunch tray a second later. felix looked at hyunjin and jisung who were sitting on either side of his boyfriend. 

“what are you doing here?” felix asks, sitting down across from them. jisung and hyunjin exchanged looks before answering. “we just wanted to meet your partner!”

chenle choked on his banana milk, hyunjin patting his back and handing him a napkin. “his what?” chenle coughed out, glancing at jisung warily. jisung held back a smirk. “you’re partners, for the history project?” he explained, felix rolling his eyes. 

“whatever you think you know, you don’t. so if you could kindly stop interrogating my history partner i would appreciate it” felix grins fakely, hyunjins eyes widening as he and jisung both know thats the ‘i look nice but i’m actually planning your death right now’ smile. 

“okay~ okay!” jisung sighs, gripping his lunch tray and standing up, hyunjin following suit. “we just wanted to talk to him but i guess he’s off limits” jisung winks, hurrying over to his usual table before felix had the chance to murder him.

felix made sure they were gone then turned back to chenle who’s ears were still red. “they didn’t annoy you that much, did they? i told them to stop-“

“no, no! it’s fine, i don’t mind it. they seem... friendly” chenle hesitates. they were friendly, but also kind of scary. they gave him banana milk every day (for an unknown reason) though so he couldn’t complain. felix squints his eyes and hums. “alright..”

felixs hands instinctively reach down to where his lunch tray should be, sighing when his hands press onto the empty table. “shit.. i was too busy trying to save you from the gremlins that i had no time to get lunch” felix pouts, turning to glance at where the lunch was being served, not fancying the luke warm food that would be left.

chenle frowns, shaking his head and tapping felix’s shoulder to get his attention again. “here” chenle hands him a sandwich, he truly didn’t want it since he’d forgotten about it and bought lunch from the counter anyways, resulting in him being full at this stage. felix was hesitant to take it.

“are you sure?”

chenle nods so felix takes it. “thank you” he smiles and takes a bite from it, grabbing chenles wrist and leaning forward so he could read the time on the boys watch. felix didn’t realise this seemed to be a habit. there were certainly plenty of huge clocks hung on the wall all over the cafeterias walls yet he chose to use chenle’s watch anyways.

“oh! i need to go meet seungmin, i’ll see you later right?” he stood up quickly, pausing to wait for chenles answer. chenle smiled. “of course” 

felix turns on his heel to leave but stops, looking back at chenle again. chenle, who had already pulled his phone out of his pocket to entertain himself for the remaining minutes of the break, raised his head curiously when he realised felix was still there. chenle tilted his head in confusion.

“do you need something?”

felix stared at the boy. curse him for being so adorable without even trying. felix let out a humph, leaning forward to ruffle chenles hair since despite the strong urge he had to kiss the boy, he was unable to do that in front of everyone. chenle scoffed, understanding where felixs mind was at. “you can do that later, now go! don’t leave seungmin waiting!” he waved away his boyfriend, watching him nod then hurry out of the room.

felix ran down the hallway, finishing off the last piece of chenles sandwich while doing so. he made a quick pit stop at his locker to retrieve something before heading off again until he found seungmin where he said he would be.

seungmin face lit up once he noticed felix approaching him. “finally” seungmin rolled his eyes playfully, earning a whack from the out of breath felix that was now panting beside him. “sorry- i lost track of time” felix breathed out, giving seungmin an apologetic look.

seungmin shook his head. “don’t worry about it. let’s get going, we have to make it back for last period” he said, walking down the hallway. felix walked beside him, exiting the school and making their way down the street and into the busy town. 

“remind me why we’re doing this again?” seungmin asks, pushing felix’s front door open. felix shrugs then realises seungmin is in front of him so couldn’t notice. “cause” he begins, throwing his schoolbag onto the couch before following seungmin upstairs. 

“cause ‘red is such a cool colour!’” seungmin mocks him, snorting at the sulky face felix had. “i’m kidding. it is pretty cool, i guess. i just don’t know why you suddenly want to look like a cherry” 

seungmin opens the bathroom door and lets felix inside, leaving to get a chair then returning and placing it in front of the large mirror. felix sits on it, watching seungmin disappear and reappear out the door until he had everything he needed.

seungmin puts a towel around felixs neck, grabbing a pair of plastic gloves and sliding them onto his hands. “i just wanted a bit of a change, i guess” felix finally answers seungmins question, connecting his phone to the bluetooth speaker.

seungmin looks at felix through the mirror while he grabs the bright red hair dye, checking that felix isn’t showing any signs of reluctance. “well. if you regret this then you can’t blame me” 

felix stared at his reflection with wide eyes, turning his head from side to side. “holy shit” he whispered, mouth hanging open. felix makes eye contact with seungmin through the mirror who’s looking at him with raised eyebrows.

“i had a small feeling it’d look like utter shit” seungmin starts, getting a scoff from felix. “but it actually looks, honestly speaking, hot but cute”

felix furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “hot but cute? seriously?” he stares at himself, the words ‘hot’ and ‘cute’ now engraved in his mind and he understands where seungmin was coming from. “shit, you’re right! i’m hot and cute!” felix shrieks, jumping up and down happily.

seungmin laughs and puts a hand around felix’s shoulder. “hate to interrupt your self-love session but if we don’t leave now we won’t make it on time for class” felix grunts but agrees, helping seungmin tidy the bathroom the most they could within five minutes then hurrying downstairs, grabbing his bag from the couch and leaving the house.

while they make their way bag to school, felix begins to worry. “what if people don’t like it?” he asks, patting the hair on his head for whatever reason. seungmin gives him an unamused look. “we’ve been over this six times within the last ten minutes, lix! you look great! it suits you, okay? trust me, i’m the most honest guy you’ll ever meet, and my honesty doesn’t just disappear because you’re my friend. i’m not lying, it really suits you”

felix lowers his head with a shy smile. “thanks seungmin” 

seungmin pretends not to care but cant help the smile creeping up on his face. “don’t worry about it”

felix and seungmin make it back inside the school right as the bell for last class goes, students flooding out of classrooms. felix notices the looks hes getting, slightly paranoid of whether the whispers he was getting were good or bad. seungmin grabbed felix’s hand to make him hurry up, tugging him along to their last class which they coincidentally shared.

as soon as he stepped inside he heard a loud whistle, “lookin’ good felix!” lee jeno, someone he knew because of chenle, called out. had felix not had a few conversations with the boy and deemed him nice, he would’ve thought the boy was being sarcastic. felix blushed, compliments being thrown at him from everyone as he made his way to his seat beside na jaemin. 

jaemin was another boy whom felix knew better through chenle, although jaemin wasn’t exactly a friend of chenle’s. more like a mutual friend, since jaemin was jeno’s best friend, and jeno was chenle’s friend, yet chenle and jaemin weren’t friends. on the other side of him sat a girl named gowon, chenle’s best friend.

felix hadn’t ever talked to gowon, as surprising as that may seem, but since he and chenle had only been dating for less than a month and gowon was busy during break time, it made sense that they just never happened to run into eachother apart from their single shared class like right now.

gowons eyes widen as she stares at felix’s hair. “just wait until chenle sees this!” she says in awe. before felix can say anything, seungmin turns around from where he’s sat in front of felix.

“chenle? why would chenle care?” seungmin asked with deep curiousity, failing to notice how nervous felix looked, instead focusing his attention on gowon since she was the one who mentioned chenle’s name.

gowons eyes flickered between the two boys, quickly putting two and two together and smiled innocently. “oh! chenle’s his history partner! i’m chenle’s best friend and since he knows felix i just thought he’d be surprised when he see’s him later, that’s all” she maintains the smile, convincing seungmin who didn’t even second question it and just nodded then turned back around.

felix, no longer fidgeting nervously now that his secret wasn’t exposed, faced gowon and whispered a “thank you”. 

gowon nodded understandingly but squinted her eyes. “chenle never mentioned that you guys’-..” she glances to her sides and lowers her voice, leaning closer to felix “relationship was a secret” she finishes, leaning back again.

felix should’ve known chenle would tell his best friend about their relationship, but he was confused as to why chenle wouldn’t tell her it was a secret. felix opens his mouth to answer gowon but she gestures in front of her with her eyes, saving felix from a upcoming scolding from the teacher. 

felix quickly packed his things into his schoolbag once the bell had gone, saying one last thanks to gowon and a hurried goodbye to seungmin before making his way out of the school. he had texted and told chenle earlier in the day that he would come over after school, which chenle responded with a bunch of puppy dog eye emojis and hearts that felix figured meant he was able to come.

the two of them didn’t walk home together, afraid that people (their friends) would get suspicious of how much the history partners were hanging out together. it did bother them, having to keep such a big thing a secret, but both of them wanted to wait until the timing was right to tell their friends and that encouraged them to keep the secret.

jisung and hyunjin, felix’s two friends, were suspicious, if their lunch time interrogations with chenle were anything to go by, but felix could tell while they did suspect something could be going on, they did it more so to get entertainment from teasing felix rather than actually trying to find out the truth. so, apart from those fools, their secret was secret as ever.

felix only stayed at his house for twenty minutes, letting his mother gush over his new hair and give him way too many compliments before convincing her that he really had to be somewhere, escaping after one last hug. 

as felix walked to chenle’s house, a route he was familiar with by this stage, he thought about when him and chenle first met. 

the official first time they met was a week before they were paired for the project. chenle had been in a rush to make it to his math class, turning the corner so sharply that he bumped right into felix who got knocked over, and to make the situation even better, chenle toppled over along with him, landing on top of felix with a “oof”.

after a few seconds of staring at each other in shock, chenle carefully but quickly got off of felix, repeatedly squeaking out “i’m sorry”, offering a hand to help felix up. chenle picked up the books he had dropped, handing felix his phone that had dropped too, not handing it back until he gave it a quick inspection and found it wasn’t broken.

“i’m so sorry about that, i was in a rush and i- i-“ 

felix chuckled softly, finding it quite cute how flustered the boy had gotten. “it was an accident, i’m fine. you said you were in a rush so what are you still here for? go on!” felix encouraged the panicked boy who stared at felix for a second but then nodded. “i’m really sorry, goodbye!”

and that was their first interaction over. felix finds it funny how hectic it was, always a memory to laugh over nowadays. felix would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought of the cute brunet he bumped into at least one time after it happened.

he thought about it most of the day, questioning why a random boy he’d met for the first time was on his mind constantly. the only other time felix had saw the boy the following week was during lunch one day, he spotted, who at the time he was unaware he was called jeno, chasing a boy out of the room. the loud what felix could only describe as a dolphin like scream was what got felix’s attention and let him catch a glimpse of the boy he immediately recognised as the boy who bumped into him getting chased by jeno, leaving his line of sight far too quickly for his liking which left him pouting. which he then got teased and questioned about by his friends.

when history class happened the next day and the teacher announced they’d be paired with someone from another history class, felix stared at the name he’d pulled out of a hat the teacher had passed around as a way to choose their partners. “chen-le?” felix read the name aloud, getting a shrug from seungmin when he asked his friend if he knew him. 

felix didn’t have much longer to think about it when suddenly the other class began to pile into the room, the teacher making them find their partners themselves which proved to be more difficult than they thought it would be.

eventually everyone was slowly beginning to find their partners, when a boy he knew as huang renjun stood in front of his desk. “are you my partner?” he asked in a fed up tone, clearly irritated by not being able to find his partner.

felix shook his head and the boy groaned, going to walk away but stopped, peeking at the paper in felix’s hands. “oh, you got chenle! chenle!” renjun called across the classroom and a all too familiar brunet perks his head up, giving renjun a curious look until renjun gestures to felix. “you’re partner!”

chenle gasps and nods, signalling that he had just found renjuns partner too (felix later found out he got paired with seungmin). chenle didn’t seem to recognise felix at first, but once he was standing beside felix his face flushed red. “oh- its you! are you okay? the fall didn’t leave a bruise or anything, did it?” chenle frantically quizzes him but felix shakes his head. 

“i’m fine. my names felix, nice to properly meet you” felix smiles at chenle who returns it, both boys ears a bright red.

felix’s flashbacks were cut short when he realised he had arrived at chenles house and was stood on his doorstep. felix takes a deep breath, bracing himself for whatever chenles reaction to his hair may be, then knocks the door five times.

fortunately, it was chenle’s mother who opened the door. “felix- oh, my! look at you!” she gasps, putting her hands on her cheeks to emphasise her surprise. “you look amazing my dear! come in, come in. chenle! felix is here!” she calls once felix has stepped inside, smiling due to ms.zhongs kind compliments.

a few thuds can be heard then footsteps come from the upstairs hallway. “coming! felix you’ll never guess what people were say- oh!”

chenle pauses halfway down his rush down the stairs, mouth falling open upon seeing felix’s cherry coloured hair. felix smiles at him, tilting his head. “do you like it?”

chenle seemed to be in a daze as he jolts, coming back to his senses. “like it? do i like it??” he gasps, running down the remaining stairs and running to felix. neither boys had noticed chenles mom slip away back into the kitchen but they didnt mind, too focused on each other.

chenle stood with barely an inch of space between their faces, looking up at felixs hair, stepping back a bit and doing a circle around felix to see his hair from all angles. chenle finally comes to a stop back in front of felix.

“i love it” 

felix smiles giddily and squishes chenle in a tight hug. “i’m glad you do. if you didn’t like it i’d have a breakdown, i think” 

chenle laughed into felixs shoulder, pulling back from the hug. “well.. come on, your hair can’t distract us from getting this project done. today’s our last day!” chenle says happily, grabbing felix’s hand and dragging him upstairs.

felix had told his mother he was staying the night at chenle’s, him and chenle’s mothers only agreeing as they knew how important this project was and that they needed the time to finish it.

of course they got a little side tracked at times (felix blames chenle, who insisted on taking ‘kissing breaks’ every five minutes because “kissing relaxes me!”) but by nine p.m the project was finished and both boys celebrated, spending a few hours watching a movie on netflix before falling asleep cuddled together on chenles bed.

the next morning they had gotten ready quickly, leaving the house a few minutes later than planned since chenle had forgotten about felixs newly dyed hair and chose to gawk at it in awe all over again until felix convinced him that no, he wasn’t dreaming and that they had to leave.

so now, here they were back where they were this time yesterday. the history project was presented and both boys got highest marks in the whole class, getting congratulated by their friends who did almost as good as them afterwards, then walking together to the cafeteria with hungry stomachs to get some food.

they had peace for a whopping two minutes before a whole group of people came marching towards them, hyunjin, jisung and seungmin sitting beside felix and gowon, jeno and renjun sitting beside chenle.

the two boys looked at their friends who had interrupted them with curious faces, unknowing of what was happening until gowon squeaked a “i’m sorry! it just slipped out!”

chenle’s mouth dropped open in a ‘o’ shape, not bothering to try and speak since immediately after gowons words the table erupted into chaos.

“i didn’t think our suspicions were correct, lix!” hyunjin yelled, overexcited at the news and not noticing the glares he received from nearby tables. “i can’t believe my best friend has a boyfriend and i didn’t know. not even a crush, a boyfriend!” seungmin whined, slapping felix’s arm whom apologised with a blush.

“i’m sorry! okay! we were gonna tell you we were just waiting for the right time!”

jisung rolls his eyes, “we’re not annoyed- okay maybe a little but who cares! you have a boyfriend, can’t wait to tease you forever”

“great” felix groans, looking over to chenle who was getting squished in a hug by renjun and jeno. 

felix laughs, getting teased for his ‘loving stare’ towards chenle but he couldn’t care less now. chenle, while getting squished, made eye contact with felix and smiled. felix didn’t have to worry anymore, cause now his friends knew, and thats all that mattered to him and chenle. he didnt care that the news of him and chenles relationship would most likely be spread around the school within no time. 

felix was too happy to care.

**Author's Note:**

> :D


End file.
